9

Reyna

It wasn't anything like the last one.

As they descended down the steep and rickety wooden steps, their lights shining a few steps down beneath them, Reyna wondered why a goddess would possibly want to be holed up in a place like this. Then she remembered what Hygeia had told them about her sister not wanting to be found, and decided she had probably done an alright job of that thus far.

Tabitha seemed to catch onto this, somewhat.

"You're saying a goddess lives down here?" she said, coughing briefly. "What is she, the goddess of creepy dungeons and basements?"

"Maybe. It's definitely uncomfortable down here," Mason said, brushing a cobweb out of his hair.

"Oh, no," Tabitha said. "I'm all about it. Creepy dungeons are sweet. I've just never seen a goddess living in a place like this."

"Speaking of," Reyna said front the front of the group. She stepped down onto what seemed like a hard stone floor, having reached the bottom of the stairs, and now stood in a small, circular room, only lit by the small lights they were carrying. In front of her, about six feet away, was a dark metal door, flat and hosting a simple brass doorknob. It seemed reinforced, but there didn't appear to be any lock on it.

"Well," Tabitha said, stepping beside her. "Know the password? Secret code?"

Reyna scrunched her eyebrows. "We weren't told about any."

Mason shrugged, then stepped up to the door. "Might as well try this first." He raised his hand and knocked on the door, the metal dinging sound echoing through the small space. "Um, hello? Is this Panacea?"

They waited for a moment, then two. No response.

"Maybe you try?" Mason said, looking at Reyna.

She walked up the door and knocked, a bit harder than Mason had. "Your sister Hygeia sent us," she called out loudly. "She told us you would be able to help us. I assume you don't want to be a part of her broken promise?"

Another moment passed, then a slightly raspy female voice called out from inside, "This had better be for something more than the flu, or you're about to be a snake for the rest of the week!"

The three of them glanced at each other. "There's a… disease inflicting my camp," Reyna said with some hesitation. "Dozens of them. We believe it's a curse, and we were led here by a prophecy that-"

A clicking sound interrupted her, coming from the door. Then the voice spoke up again. "Alright, fine. But don't think I owe you anything just because of something my sister said. And don't touch anything."

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Usually, when Reyna was describing somewhere she had been before, she would be able to begin explaining by comparing the place to something familiar. The Amazons operated from an Amazon warehouse facility. Camp Half-Blood was a summer camp in New York. Even if said locations hosted a myriad of oddities and unfamiliar elements from Greek and Roman mythology, the anchor of that familiar setting and name made it much easier for people to visualize what she was trying to explain.

Every time she would attempt to describe the room she walked into next, Reyna found herself unable to find any such familiar descriptor, and instead had to resort to describing each individual thing she saw.

As she walked through the doorway, her eyes were met with a large, two-story-high room with flat, beige walls. It seemed mostly square-shaped, stretching about 30 feet across in either direction. The space was lit with seemingly natural light pouring in from the far side of the room, which hosted a large, flat window covering most of the wall, looking out over Lake Superior. Reyna's mind briefly wondered how that was possible, after having walked at least a couple stories underground, but the rest of the room quickly took her attention.

It was, quite frankly, a mess. The kind of mess that the owner of would insist was actually organized, and that they were perfectly able to find whatever they needed at any given time. There was a twin bed in one corner with plain white sheets, though at the moment there were a variety of books and magazines scattered across it. A long, wooden desk sat opposite the bed, stretching along the wall for at least a dozen or so feet. Across the surface, there was a clutter of items that almost hurt to look at for too long. In her brief glancing, Reyna saw a microscope, multiple piles of books, various pieces of paper with scribbled notes and drawings, a few potted plants, a Newton's cradle, a lot of empty or half-empty glass cups and coffee mugs, a foot-long white bird feather, and a hedgehog Chia Pet. There was much more than that, but her eyes took her away before something in her brain stopped functioning.

The rest of the room wasn't much better. There was a massive bookshelf on one wall that stretched almost up to the ceiling, and seemed to contain only about two-thirds books, with the rest being taken up by a similar array of small oddities. There was a small tree in a pot in one corner, growing what seemed to be small purple apples. Next to it was a white upright freezer. Across the space was a large metal safe, and on top of it, a miniature bust of some god in a regal pose. In one corner, there was a large pile of what seemed like scrolls, haphazardly thrown together. In fact, that was the impression Reyna got from the entire room. It was a bit hard to believe this was the space of someone related to Hygeia.

There was much more she could have explored with her eyes, but part of her mind pushed her back into focus, and her eyes settled on what she now saw was a figure who seemed to be a middle-aged woman sitting in a black, swiveling office chair in front of the desk.

Her frame was thin and leant over the desk with slouched shoulders, one of her arms resting on the desk. As she turned to face them, Reyna saw the woman's face: an angular chin and jawline, curly brunette hair that seemed to jut out in every direction, and intense blue eyes that were narrowed in either suspicion or annoyance. Or both. She was wearing a plain brown shirt and jeans, an oddly casual and plain look. Had it not been for the striking setting around them, Reyna might have thought her to be an ordinary - albeit unsettling - woman.

"You said something about a prophecy?" the woman spoke in a harsh voice, staring at Reyna.

Reyna blinked and gathered her thoughts. "Yes. By our camp's Oracle. I'm here to find a cure to-"

"What's the prophecy?" the woman interrupted, tilting her head.

Reyna glanced behind her to Mason and Tabitha, then back to the woman. "I'm not sure speaking it aloud is a good-"

"I can't help you if I don't know the exact words, honey," she interrupted again.

"Can't or won't?" Mason asked.

The woman glanced past Reyna, almost seeming to do a double-take. "There are more of you," she muttered with a look of mildly irritated surprise. Then she looked back to Reyna. "And the answer doesn't matter if the outcome is the same. You won't get what you want unless I hear the prophecy."

A wave of discomfort filled Reyna as the woman stared into her eyes. If this woman really was Hygeia's sister, the only way she could tell was through her blue eyes: filled with a similar but different intensity. She considered her options and her discomfort in sharing the words of a prophecy, but eventually let out a small sigh.

"Destruction's daughter fights alone, strength given to save two homes. The bladeless sword will rend the curse, and single flame, to more disperse." She let out a breath as she finished, trying to let some tension in her body go.

The woman's eyes were narrowed as she nodded in thought. Then she turned back to her desk, picked up a pen, and began writing on one of the many sheets of paper strewn about the desk. "So," she said. "What is it you want? I assume my sister sent me?"

Reyna tried to keep a scowl off her face as she stepped closer to where the goddess was sitting. She had to kick aside a couple of cardboard boxes. "You are Panacea, right?"

"You have a problem with something?"

"No. Are you?"

The woman sighed. "Yes, of course I am. You demigods go to all this trouble to find me, with the clue and the door and everything, and then still wonder if I'm who you're looking for." The goddess spun in her chair to face them again, lifting her arms up in a sarcastic "tada" pose. "Panacea, daughter of Asclepius, goddess of universal remedy, and eternal sufferer of desperate requests. Now how can I be of the briefest and least annoying assistance?"

Reyna did actually scowl this time. "In case you weren't aware, as I expect most gods and goddesses to be, there's a disease running rampant through Camp Half-Blood, and you happened to be our only point of contact for any way to cure it."

"You said you're the goddess of universal remedy, right?" Tabitha spoke up, stepping further into the room as well. "So that's gotta be why we're here. You have a way to cure it."

The goddess frowned. "Yes, of course you would think so. That I just have some magical vial sitting around in here that you can take back and drop in their mouths."

"You don't?" Mason said, in a tone more filled with worry than annoyance.

The goddess glanced at Mason. "No, mortal boy. That's not how any of this works."

"So we came all this way for nothing?" Reyna said with a clenched jaw.

The goddess stood up from her chair and pointed a finger at her. "That is not what I said," she said, walking over to the large window at the end of the room. "I said that I don't have a cure, not in the way you think I might. You realize there are more ways than magical potions to solve problems in this world, right?"

"Well, obviously," Tabitha said.

The goddess turned to face them from the window. "So, I would hope that it doesn't surprise you when I say that your problem can't be solved with any such magical potion. There's no cure, not really."

"It's a curse," Reyna said. "We know that already. We need to know how to break it."

The goddess stared at her for a few seconds, then closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. "Come here," she said.

Reyna hesitated.

"I'm not going to hurt you, not really," Panacea said. "I need to see something."

Reyna stepped across the room until she stood in front of the goddess, who proceeded to study her closely.

Panacea stared into her eyes for what seemed like an hour, narrowing and un-narrowing her sharp blue eyes multiple times. She lifted her hand to grab Reyna's cheek, turning her face in her hand, to Reyna's displeasure. The goddess muttered some indiscernible words under her breath as she examined Reyna intensely. After a moment, she saw the goddess' eyes widen slightly as she let go of her face.

Panacea shook her head. "I thought I might see something about the curse… But you have something else…"

Reyna blinked. "What?"

The goddess shook herself out of her thoughts, then looked at Reyna. Her voice had a tone Reyna had not heard yet in their time here; a tone that made her uneasy with its cryptic confidence. "You have much more than this cure to find to rid yourself of your afflictions, daughter of Bellona. I suggest you be aware of your own limits in all of this. You must pull the weed from its root if you wish to take on this burden."

Both the words and the goddess' change in voice shook Reyna, as her mind reeled in confusion. Her own afflictions? Pulling the weed from its root? What did that have to do with the curse at camp? As far as she could tell, she wasn't burdened with the curse as the other campers were. But now she began to worry. Was it contagious like a disease? Or was there something else?

"What was that?" she heard Tabitha say from a few feet away. "What did you say? Are you giving out prophecies, too, now?"

The goddess broke her stare to glance behind Reyna. "I wish I could prophesize. But no, it's not exactly the same. Being the goddess of universal remedy means I need to be able to universally diagnose, doesn't it?"

Tabitha and Mason glanced at each other.

"I guess so," Mason said.

"So," the goddess said, gesturing to Reyna. "Just like how there are plenty of problems you can't fix with medicine, there are plenty of ways to see just what is wrong with someone, and what they need as a 'cure.'"

"Ooh," Tabitha said with some excitement. "Could you do me next, then?"

The goddess' face went flat in annoyance. "Yes, I guess all the children would like a turn, then? Bah, get over here before I change my mind."

Tabitha briskly walked across the room as Reyna stepped away, still in a haze of thought. It took her a moment to realize Mason had tentatively laid a hand on her shoulder.

"You alright?" he asked quietly.

She nodded, then stood quietly as Tabitha subjected herself to the goddess' prodding.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she heard Tabitha say after a minute.

"It means just what I said," Panacea replied. "The words come to me more than I come up with them. I can't help you any more than that."

"Uh huh. Dang, I'd probably get something better from a carnival tarot card reader."

The goddess' eyes narrowed.

"I mean, thank you, Lady Panacea. I will heed your words with caution," Tabitha said, bowing with a hint of sarcasm before stepping away.

As Tabitha joined the other two, a moment of silence passed.

"And you, mortal boy?" the goddess said, her arms crossed.

Mason looked at her in surprise. "Uh, what?"

Panacea rolled her eyes. "You're here, aren't you? Let me take a look at you."

"I'm alright. You know, I'm not even really-"

He stopped as the goddess titled her head with an intense look in her eyes, gesturing with her finger.

Reyna saw Mason hesitate as he glanced towards her. She gave him a small nod of affirmation.

Mason stepped across the room to stand before the goddess, and Reyna noticed him try to hide the limp that he walked with occasionally.

Panacea then went through much the same process with him, staring at his face in deliberation and moving it around with her hand. After a minute or two, she saw her eyes widen, her lips whisper a few words to him, and then she broke away to begin pacing back and forth in front of the window, clearly thinking to herself. Mason stood in place with his back to Reyna and Tabitha, watching the goddess. Clearly there was something interesting that Panacea had gleaned from her observations of Mason, whatever they were and however she did it. Reyna was just about to speak up when she heard the goddess speak.

"That could work… She might just allow it… That could work. Yes, it will," she said, turning back to the group with the first smile on her face that they'd seen since being there. "Well, aren't you an interesting lot? As much as I hate solicitors, I believe you have come to the right place."

"So you do have a solution," Reyna said.

"Ah, no. I'm rarely the one that has it. I just point people to where they need to go," the goddess said as she walked over to the pile of scrolls in the corner, rummaging through them before picking one out. "Yes! You know, normally the demigods that come to me are just buffoons who couldn't see the remedy to their problem if it smacked them in the nose. But this one? I wouldn't blame you. Well, maybe a little bit. But not as much."

She walked over to the desk and laid out the scroll, using a few mugs to keep the paper flat. As Reyna glanced to the scroll, she saw nothing but gibberish in a language she didn't recognize and a couple of odd drawings.

Panacea turned to her after a moment. "So, I assume you want to know the solution to your problem?"

Reyna stared at the goddess. "Yes, of course. How do we get the cure?"

"Ah ah ah," Panacea spat rapidly, shaking her finger. "Not the cure. The solution."

Reyna restrained an eye roll. "Yes, the solution."

A triumphant smirk appeared on Panacea's face. "You will find your solution at Mount Olympus."

The words took a moment to register, but as Reyna began to try to question her the goddess continued speaking.

"You will travel to New York and enter Mount Olympus. There, the five of you will each have someone waiting to speak with you, privately."

Tabitha's face scrunched up. "Five of us? There's only three of us."

Panacea glared at her. "Yes, that's what I said. Then you will receive the solution you seek: the instrument that will grant you the ability to rid your friends of the burden of the curse."

The three of them waited a moment to see if the goddess would continue. When she didn't, Tabitha spoke up. "That's it?"

The goddess glared at her again. "You sure are hard to please. That's the most in-depth solution I've given in centuries. Do you need the address of the Empire State Building, too, or can you manage to find your way there yourself?"

Reyna spoke before Tabitha could respond. "Wait, I don't think any of us have ever been to Mount Olympus. How do you know they'll even let us in?" She glanced to her two companions. "We're two Romans and a mortal."

"And two-" Panacea spoke before stopping herself. "You know what, I don't need to explain any more. You get there, you get what you need." She sat back down at her chair, picking up a mug with the words I hate Mondays printed on it. "Any questions? No? Good. Now if you don't mind, I have some work to get back to. Sort of nice to meet you, have a mediocre day!"

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"Well, that was…"

"Interesting?" Mason said as he opened the car door.

"I was going to say 'annoying,'" Tabitha said, ducking down into the backseat. "But yeah, interesting works, too."

Reyna had been quiet for most of the brief walk back up the stairs and to the car, thinking about everything Panacea had said.

Whatever the goddess saw in Reyna, it wasn't a good thing, and it seemed serious. Furthermore, it apparently wasn't even directly tied to the curse, which didn't ease Reyna's mind. Now that she was thinking back on the past few months, she did notice that things had been different lately. After the war with Gaea had ended, she and all of the demigods had celebrated with sighs of relief at it all being over. However, eventually they all had to return to their normal lives. Some of their lives had changed, like Jason becoming the Pontifex Maximus, but for the most part things went back to normal, or as normal as they could be in a world of gods and monsters.

But Reyna felt different. There was something in her that felt… unresolved. She felt incredibly grateful for the growth she had undergone and the friends she had made, but she still felt that it wasn't over. Not so much with the war, but with herself. Her journey with Nico and Coach Hedge - especially seeing Hylla at their old home in Puerto Rico - still occupied much of her thought, as well as her dreams. Visions of Orion killing Huntresses and Amazons, Nico fading away from exhaustion in her arms, stabbing a golden sword into her father – all still fresh in her mind.

Whatever it was that Panacea saw, Reyna knew that it wasn't nothing. She had felt it, too, even if she didn't understand it. It sat like a rock in her gut, weighing her down. Perhaps it had to do with the "weed" the goddess had mentioned.

"So," Tabitha said as they began driving. "First things first. You're both fine with me coming along? Panacea did say that all of us had someone we needed to talk to at Mount Olympus, right?"

Reyna glanced back to Tabitha. "I suppose so. What did she tell you?"

Tabitha waved her hand dismissively. "Eh, something about needing to keep the peace between two parties. I dunno, I probably just need to break up my dad and bro next time they argue or something. What about you guys?"

Reyna and Mason both sat quietly for a long moment.

"Aw c'mon, you really gonna keep this a secret?"

"I already spoke something I probably shouldn't have with the prophecy," Reyna said. "I don't think it's wise to reveal everything."

"Oh yeah, that prophecy. You know what it means?" Tabitha asked, leaning forward in her seat.

"Not entirely," Reyna said. "My mother, Bellona, is a goddess of destruction, among other things. So it likely is referring to me. Other than that, not much else has been made clear."

"You the only daughter of Bellona?"

Reyna scrunched her eyebrows. "Well, no. I do have a sister."

"Could be her, right?"

"Maybe."

The thought hadn't occurred to Reyna.

"Well," Mason spoke up. "Whatever it is, we know where to go next, right? New York?"

"Are you fine with driving us all that way?" Reyna asked.

Mason smiled at her. "Of course. Plus, Panacea said that apparently there's someone I need to talk to there?"

"I'm not sure how that will happen," Reyna said, staring out the window at the passing trees. "As far as I know, mortals can't even enter Mount Olympus. And I have never been there."

"Well, we'll have to figure out when we get there, I guess," Tabitha said, leaning back. "For now, we have quite the drive ahead."

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After stopping briefly for lunch, making sandwiches with what Mason had brought along, they drove for about an hour south. As Reyna spotted the water of Lake Huron and the green of Mackinac Bridge, Mason spoke up.

"You good to keep going? I assume you don't want to stop until it gets dark, but we're coming up on St. Ignace again if you need to."

"Yeah, we can," she said. "By the way, I can drive if you need me to."

"I'm alright."

"No, really. It's a long drive to-"

"I know," he interrupted. "It's fine, really. I don't mind it. The driving. You should rest."

Reyna leaned back, slightly annoyed. "I've done plenty of resting already. You've made sure of that."

Mason smiled as the car made its way onto Mackinac Bridge. "I can't have you falling asleep on the job, right?"

Reyna sighed, but still smiled back. "Thank you. I guess."

"Are you guys sure you're not dating?"

Mason and Reyna both glanced back, remembering that Tabitha was in the car with them, who now had that same mischievous smirk as before.

"What?" they both said at the same time.

"That's a no, then. Yeah, I don't buy it. You guys are cute, really."

Mason frowned, trying to focus on driving. "I don't see how any of what we just said would make you think that."

"Right," Tabitha said, chuckling. "The whole 'being-considerate-while-still-arguing thing.' The smiling at each other like idiots? Yeah, definitely nothing."

"You know," Reyna said with a tinge of frustration, feeling her cheeks flush despite herself. "Maybe some discretion would be good for you? You've been awfully nosy since you joined us."

Tabitha lifted her hands. "Alright, alright. I'm just messing with you."

An awkward moment that felt like an eternity passed.

"Hey, you know what? Here's what I can do," Tabitha said, reaching into her pocket. After a moment, she pulled out a small black and red twenty-sided die, displaying it in her hand. "See this? Gift from my mom. She knew I liked D&D."

Reyna narrowed her eyes. "D&D?"

Tabitha held a hand to her chest in mock shock. "You've never played Dungeons & Dragons before? Unacceptable. We must remedy this. When we get back to Camp Jupiter, you're joining my campaign immediately."

She rummaged through her bag, pulling out a hardcover book. "Anyway, this dice is special. You ever wanna know what your luck is at the moment? What fortune lies in your near future? This baby can help with that. Give it a roll, and you've got yourself a miniature fortune. Pretty cool. It pays to have a mom whose domain is luck."

Tabitha began to shake the dice in her hand. "Twenty is what you want, means you'll succeed, like, no matter what. One is a crit fail, so you're pretty much dead. I've never seen numbers that low or high before on this thing, though. Anything below, like, six or so is really bad. Ready?"

Reyna watched Tabitha's antics from the front seat, not sure what to make of all of it. She shrugged.

"Let's see what lies in store for us. Maybe we'll get some spicy romance? People confessing and all that?" Tabitha said as she rolled the die onto the book in her lap. "Maybe we'll even get some-"

She stopped as the die stopped rolling, staring at the now still object in her lap. It took Reyna a moment to focus on the small object, but as she did, she glanced up to Tabitha's face, which had shifted from jovial to rigid.

Mason turned his head to glance to the backseat. "Wait, what is it? What'd you get?"

Tabitha didn't answer, just staring down at her lap. Reyna was doing the same. So, consequently, there was a moment in which none of the people in the car were looking out at the bridge ahead of them.

Time seemed to slow as a deafening crunching sound filled the car, and Reyna felt her head whipped forward into some kind of cushion. The seatbelt across her chest dug into her, winding her. She couldn't focus her vision, but she did see Mason being thrown forward, too, only to be caught just as she was. A sharp ringing sound echoed in her head, a pounding headache immediately forming.

It took what seemed like forever for the ringing to stop, but as it faded and pain started to throb throughout her body, she heard the sounds of creaking metal, a blaring alarm, and, somewhere outside, screaming voices.

The first thing her eyes focused on was an object now sitting in her lap. A small die, still somehow staring at her with the same number she had seen before.

Five.